The number of online jobs has increased especially in the last few years. When businesses were forced to close at the start of the pandemic many people had to look for ways to start making money online.

The problem with online income is that there may be a lot of gray areas for what is real and what might be a scam. There are also plenty of people that swear that making money is so easy you can do it in your sleep and that being a millionaire is just about following their system. Here’s the truth: in that scenario, one person will become a millionaire and that person just is not you.

Tip: Make money online with Swagbucks. Swagbucks is an easy way to earn extra money online. Take surveys, search the web, shop online, play games, answer trivia, and more.

Before you invest money that you do not have in a business model that is never going to help you earn passive income, look for other, simpler ways of making real money. You can earn cash, you can earn free gift cards, you can even earn free gas and there are plenty of easy-to-do methods that even a beginner can handle. In some cases, you are only going to need an internet connection and a few minutes of extra time per day. There are other ways that will require more time and skills but feel free to start small and work up to those as you become more confident.

How Can I Make Money Online Without Paying for Anything?

With few exceptions, there are going to be some type of expenses with nearly any type of business venture, and making money online is no exception. From starting your own blog to finding things to sell online there are fees and expenses that can keep people from considering them. There are some free ways to make money online, including ways that can be done from your own home, in your own time. The most rewarding of these are the ones that let you set your own price.

Here are the top ways of earning money online for beginners, no money needed:

  • Become a call center agent.
  • Sell items you already own through Facebook Marketplace or local Facebook buy/sell groups.
  • Become a virtual assistant for local businesses.
  • Help others learn how to shop online.
  • Work for a food delivery service.

These are all completely free, and relatively easy to learn.

Here are some intermediate to advanced level online jobs that may or may not require additional skills and may also require some initial fees to get started:

  • Start an online business.
  • Freelance writing.
  • Post Facebook ads for your own business.
  • Manage Facebook ads for small business owners,
  • Join an affiliate program.
  • Start online tutoring.
  • Begin a Youtube channel.
  • Do data entry.
  • Do market research for businesses.
  • Teach personal finance skills.
  • Test websites.

While you can make extra cash from these ideas, you may not have immediate success on one platform, call it a wash and give up. That is not a great idea. Like any other job you will ever have, you have to compete against others. Unlike a local office job, you may be competing against every other person in the world who wants the same job.

Let’s use the freelance writer as an example. A job has been posted on one website for a single blog post on a topic you are very comfortable with. You create your bid for the job, provide an example, and then you wait, doing nothing more than refreshing the page and waiting for a message.

You have wasted a lot of time that could have been trying to make money in another way plus, you could have used this time to bid on other posted jobs. In the world of earning money online, you have to cast a wide net. Don’t get discouraged if the jobs are slow to come or the pay is low because once you manage to stand out, you will get the better-paying jobs plus you will have tons of valuable experience to use to get the next job and the next.

What Are Some Real Ways to Make Money from Home?

For a beginner, one of the easiest ways of making money online is with online surveys. Survey sites pay out millions of dollars every year and most offer options for your pay like cash, direct deposit, or gift cards. The best sites have more than one or two ways to earn money. Note: you will probably only earn a few dollars per day but all extra money adds up.

So, how do you earn money by taking surveys? It is pretty simple, really. Survey sites are paid by other companies, including some of the real big names, to help them with their market research. You take a survey and earn points which are saved to your account. With enough points, you can cash out. The amount needed will vary from website to website.

Tip: You should never have to pay to become a member of a survey site. You also should never have to give out information like your social security number, driver’s license information, or other sensitive data. Any website that claims you can make $1000 taking surveys is trying to scam you, so stay away.

Survey Sites to Consider

Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars are two examples of the better survey sites that you should consider joining. Not only will you be making money online with either (or both) of these sites, but you can also use them to save money while shopping online or in stores.

Here are the options you have to make more money with Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars:

  • Taking surveys and answering daily poll questions. You can earn anything from a few cents to a few dollars with each survey that you are qualified to complete.
  • Playing games. You will have to meet different criteria for every game. For example, you may have to play the game for a set number of hours before points are awarded. For other games, you may have to reach a certain game level. All requirements are listed before you download the game and commit to playing them.
  • Install browser extensions or use the search engines as your default to earn extra points.
  • Take part in special games and events on each website.
  • Use the “discover” button to complete offers to earn points and learn about new products or services. Some offers are simple such as subscribing to a newsletter. Others may require a specific purchase. Points will be listed along with the requirements for each offer that you are seeing.

Save Money while making money with the Swagbucks and Inbox Dollar websites:

  • Use discount codes for savings at thousands of merchants for online purchases plus your in-store shopping as well.
  • Upload receipts for bonus points whenever you purchase something that is listed. No need to keep track of brands, sizes, or other information the website will scan the receipt and automatically award the points.
  • Get coupons or special offers by installing the browser extension for either website. Whenever you are on a website that might have discounts or cash back offers available, the extension will let you know.

What are the Best Ways to Make Money Online?

The best ways to make online are the ones that let you make the most money, work your own hours, and have some fun while you are doing it. That means, there are going to be different “best” ways for everyone out there. Also, the job title and the actual job can mean different things too.

Say you have decided to become a freelance writer. There are dozens of ways to make money with writing like writing articles, helping people write better resumes, helping students write better essays, and the list goes on and on. As a beginner, it is probably best to establish yourself within one skill set before expanding to others.

Even more important is deciding where you will be getting work. Online platforms for freelance writers include sites like Fiverr and Upwork or you can create your own website, create a blog post, and include an affiliate link to earn passive income. Be aware that there are pitfalls with both options.

If you are using a site to earn money online you are competing for every job. Even established and long-term writers get pushed out of the way and overlooked on those sites. For many, it becomes a feast or famine kind of deal where one month you are considering starting a Go Fund me and another month where you are so busy working that you barely have time to do anything else.

With creating a blog, you have to be able to reach a fairly wide audience before you can even start adding affiliate links to your website. If you can’t put up fairly decent numbers, you are not going to be successful and your dreams of making money online fast will fizzle away.

While niche topics (like barnyard animals who play the piano) may not be competitive, a parenting lifestyle blog may have broader appeal. It’s best to pick a topic that has a large category, like fashion, and then you can winnow it down. You can focus on trendy children’s clothes or budget brands or just cool kids’ stuff you find exclusively from one store.

The average salary of a freelance writer or content creator can vary wildly and may depend on how they are being paid (by the piece or per word) and who is reporting on the salary.

Another good suggestion is to make money online working as a tutor. Teaching online courses in something that you are very knowledgeable about can be rewarding both in terms of actual money and in the satisfaction of improving someone’s life.

Did you know that you may not need to be a certified teacher to create and teach your own online course? If you want to teach it, have the skills to break down the information, and are able to get students to subscribe, there are platforms that will let you do just that. Sites like Udemy, Teachable, SkillShare, and Podia all let you have your own online business as an online tutor.

Each site has different sign-up procedures so check them out, compare them and see which will best fill your needs.

What are the Top Ways for Beginners to Make Money Online?

If you Google this question, you will get 9,040,000,000 results. Of those, everyone is an expert, everyone has 50 ways, 100 ways, 22 ways, and they all sound confusing, they all sound intimidating, and then at the end is the hook. They know you want to start making money online, and they know you are a beginner so they throw too much information at you, very few actionable steps, and then try to sell you a “program”. Don’t fall for it.

Do you want to make money online? Here are the steps no matter how you choose to do it:

  • Choose something you are interested in.
  • Research how to make money with that idea.
  • Research how big the market is and how open it is.
  • Research how much time and money you will have to invest to make this money.
  • Either move ahead with your plan or find a new plan.
  • Drive for Uber and do online surveys in the meantime.

Final Thoughts on How to Make Money Online for Beginners

You can make money online for free. That’s the easy part. The big question is can you make enough money to live on and if so, how comfortable will you be? Remember, the internet is a huge, but very fickle place. Blogs about dogs are all the rage one month and then someone goes a step too far and suddenly everyone is over here reading about how chickens are the pet of the future. Dogs? No, I don’t know her.

Be ready to make a change. Don’t get too comfortable in one online job, especially in some fields. Know your fallbacks. There will always be call centers. You can always get some extra money doing online surveys. Always improve your skills, learn new things when you can and be ready to ride the next big wave when it comes toward you.

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